


Terpsichore with a Cheeky Grin

by innie



Series: Portfolio [2]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:01:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22213726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Harry is inspired and drags Merlin and Eggsy into his vision.  They take to it like ducks to water but still . . . why would they make it easy on him?
Relationships: Gary "Eggsy" Unwin & Lee Unwin, Harry Hart | Galahad & Merlin, Merlin & Lee Unwin, Merlin/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin
Series: Portfolio [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599244
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58
Collections: 2019 Kingsman Stocking Stuffers





	Terpsichore with a Cheeky Grin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elrhiarhodan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/gifts), [Snafu07](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snafu07/gifts).



> Continuing this little series, in which Lee lives! 
> 
> Once again Harry has a thoroughly sordid sexual liaison that's mentioned but not shown [anyone have ideas about who he could sex up to close out this tiny trilogy?] and Merlin and Eggsy are the most precious together.
> 
> _______________________________________
> 
> elrhiarhodan [requested](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s2rNapjEEq2fb9inYXWanGjlUCI2GvUk3eNDNbPdniw/edit) model Eggsy, photographer Merlin, and designer Harry, and Snafu07 wanted gymnast Eggsy.

"I know something you don't know," Harry tried to sing-song, but croaked instead, and Merlin just _knew_ today was going to be one of those days, even though _yesterday_ — which he'd spent ministering to most of his friends as they struggled to recover from the Fall-of-Rome excesses of Roxy's birthday party — had already been one of those days.

Best to nip whatever this was in the bud. "Oh, aye?" he asked, directing his remarks to the left lapel of Harry's ridiculous crimson dressing-gown. "You know many things I don't," he said, straight-faced, and watched as Harry tried valiantly not to be touched by the admission. Harry, for all his showboating, was terrible at taking compliments, and managed to hide his face by gesturing Merlin in impatiently.

As always, Harry's wretched house was an assault on Merlin's senses, and he needed a moment to acclimate himself. Why Harry had insisted on cramming every square inch of the place with ugly things he'd found _and then paid shopkeepers to take home with him_ Merlin had no earthly idea. How Harry could think in this jumble was beyond him.

Harry took an extra few seconds to compose himself by pretending he needed to secure the door, but when he turned back around, he looked smug enough. Forewarned by a millisecond, Merlin blurted out, "Christ, you _didn't_. Just don't. I don't have any need to know what the spunk of that stripping cowboy tasted like." Merlin wasn't above begging, because Harry had no sense of boundaries, and Merlin had no intention of reciprocating with any details about Eggsy, whenever he and Eggsy got to the having-details stage.

"Quite delectable, I assure you, but that's yesterday's news," Harry, the shameless tart, said. "I've come up with a design for the campaign!"

It was still too soon to relax, Merlin told himself sternly, but his shoulders were already loosening. "Do tell."

"It all relies on Eggsy," Harry said, eyeing him speculatively, as if considering how best to couch an offer of a makeover. Merlin drew himself up to his full height — he was taller than Harry, which was all that he needed — and Harry shook his head, evidently abandoning his hopes. "Do you think he'd mind doing us another favour?"

Eggsy wasn't a model, not officially. He worked for Lee, as a mechanic, and in the course of fixing Roxy's car had let himself be talked into helping out her Uncle Harry, who'd griped to all and sundry about that delusional twat Charles Hesketh and his pestilential grandfather. " _Us_ , is it?" Merlin asked, amused. 

"Why, Merlin, he seemed ever so eager to grant your every wish," Harry drawled.

There were a lot of differences between him and Harry — differences that had existed from the time they'd met in first form at Winchester, and Merlin had never understood why Harry couldn't see the divide between them — and this was the one he'd never wanted to put words to. "I . . . I don't move as quickly as some might," was what he finally said. He wasn't unsure of his desire for Eggsy, or ashamed of his infatuation, but he wanted to proceed with care, not go barrelling ahead and trusting, as Harry did, that everything would work out to his benefit.

Harry peered more closely at him and then showed him a real smile, the one he remembered from all those years ago. "Perhaps I oughtn't to show you what I found, as it might push your ducks out of their tidy row."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "Just show me and we'll get on with our work."

"Just remember, you asked for this," Harry said, and led the way to where his flatscreen television waited like a great hulking beast, ready to spring. Merlin bitterly regretted ever wall-mounting the thing for Harry, or showing him how to access the internet on it. He pushed some buttons on the remote control and a video, already cued up, began to play.

There, on the screen, was Eggsy, shining with sweat. His eyes were so intent that they'd gone opaque and impenetrable, and then suddenly he was running and hurling himself through the air with nothing to catch him but his own skill. Eggsy was wearing a thin sleeveless vest with a number pinned to the back and stretchy trousers — tights, really — that left nothing to the imagination. Eggsy was an Olympic gymnast. "What," Merlin said hoarsely.

Eggsy flew through the air, tumbling like gravity was a concept that applied only to other people, and Merlin could hardly bear to watch, fearing the worst, though he knew very well that Eggsy was sound of limb. "When?" he asked.

"Four years ago," Harry said with satisfaction. "He was an alternate on the Olympic squad for London, and competed in Rio, where he took the individual all-around silver. Won bronze for the floor" — trust Harry to have fucked a stripper, ferretted out Eggsy's past, and become an expert at gymnastics lingo in thirty hours whilst Merlin had been listening to James bewail his pounding head as Roxy laughed at him with all the defiant ignorance of youth — "and gold on the horse."

Merlin had no idea what that meant until the next video began to play. Whoever had called that contraption a _horse_ had had too much imagination or not enough. His heart in his throat, he watched Eggsy slice his way along the length of it, legs like knives, hands sure and arms delectably taut. "Bite those shoulders for me," Harry said, apparently transfixed, "and build an altar to those thighs."

That was Harry all over; put something beautiful in front of him and he reached out for it. Merlin found he couldn't say a word, though he was determined to go beyond what Harry had asked of him and worship Eggsy as the lad deserved.

*

"Feel proper posh, meeting at Kew Gardens," Eggsy said from behind him, and Merlin whirled and snapped a picture purely by instinct. He'd been exercising his eye — the Gardens had blossoms in serried ranks, and enough insects and birds that choosing where to focus was a question that could be answered in infinite ways — and had his camera at the ready. Eggsy blinked, paused, and then turned those moss-green eyes on his mouth.

He smelt of soap and tasted like honeyed tea and Merlin did not want to let him out of his arms.

"An' now I feel like a right pervert, thinking these thoughts in the middle of Kew Gardens," Eggsy said with a laugh.

"Did you want to go somewhere else?" Merlin asked, fidgeting when Eggsy's delighted smile — crinkling his dappled skin — made him aware of the implication of his offer. "To talk, I mean."

"Yeah," Eggsy said. "My place? Your place? Whatever suits you suits me." Eggsy helped him gather his belongings, and Merlin was growing more overheated by the second. He had his jumper off and was rolling up the sleeves of his shirt when he heard a different kind of silence take over the space between them. "Merlin," Eggsy said quietly, "where'd you get that watch?"

Out of habit, he glanced at it and then looked for its twin on Eggsy's wrist. "It's from when I was on the bomb squad, partnered with your father."

"Oh," Eggsy breathed out, took a step back, and then stepped forward once more. "I didn't — I didn't know. Da doesn't tell tales about those days. Says —"

"Says there's not much to say?" Merlin finished, and Eggsy nodded, flushed like he was expecting to be told off. "There's no way to talk about it properly, lad. Either we did our job and defused a bomb or we didn't and people got hurt." Eggsy's face was dimming. "But I could speak for hours about your father and the kind of partner he was."

"Yeah? What was he like, then?"

"The best, absolutely," Merlin averred. "I like to tinker, pull things apart and figure them out and then put them back together, but he had a gift, an instinct for it. Devices just spoke to him. And he was the one everyone wanted to take home and thank when he saved lives." Just speaking of those days was bringing memories back with greater clarity than he'd expected. "He never went, though. Always said he had a little egg waiting for him."

Eggsy grinned up at him, but his voice wobbled a little. "Merlin? Come home with me?" he asked, as if there could be any doubt about what the answer might be.

*

Naked and spent, his face pressed against Eggsy's bared shoulder, Merlin disobliged Harry by not biting the thick muscle; instead, he strung slow kisses in a chain from one shoulder to the other, revelling in the lithe body beneath his. Eggsy was warm and drowsy, and his lassitude was drawing Merlin in, making him forget the sweet ache their exertions had brought on. He was ready to sleep, no matter that the afternoon sun was hitting Eggsy's bed like a spotlight and turning his eyes to water.

"Gimme a cuddle, Merlin," Eggsy said, kissing down the bridge of his nose, and Merlin buried his face in the slim strength of that neck and wrapped his arms around his newfound treasure.

*

Harry smirked with triumph when they walked into the studio hand in hand, evidently deciding that boded well for his plan. Merlin recalled that it hadn't yet been divulged; his brain had wandered off at the sight of Eggsy in his uniform, bringing glory to Queen and country. "Much better to have you both here," Harry said in his inimitable way; Harry had a gift for making his ideas seem like the soundest common sense and any objections like the merest drivel, and Merlin raised an eyebrow, waiting to hear what he'd come out with next.

Eggsy, who didn't know any better, looked eager. His innocence was awfully fetching.

"I was looking at the photographs of Charles" — Merlin deeply appreciated that Harry could not keep the offended look from his face — "and thought that we completely missed the mark. My designs are not meant for chinless wonders and those who would look down their ugly noses at the less fortunate," he began. Merlin applauded the sentiment but did wonder how many of the deserving poor Harry thought would be able to afford Kingsman fashions. "My clothes are meant to express _joie de vivre_ , an enthusiasm for everything that makes life worth living." Merlin, who wore his jumpers because comfort was his only concern and could not have borne to be packaged into the sleek lines he captured with his camera, thought about it and decided Harry was speaking only the truth; Harry did in fact look happier in a suit than in joggers, and revelled in the sharp first impression he always made.

Eggsy pinched the thin skin of his wrist but kept his face straight. "That's lovely, Harry. Who's Charles?"

Harry beamed. "A complete non-entity whom you eclipse in every way." Merlin reaped the reward for Harry's pretty words, as Eggsy pressed a kiss to his shoulder. "The new idea to show off the Autumn line and demonstrate our attitude is _Singin' in the Rain_."

Eggsy's face fell dramatically. His devilry was even more fetching than his shy wonder, and Merlin wanted to eat him up. "Oh, but I can't dance, Harry." The little imp was being careful not to lie outright — he didn't dare disclaim any singing talent, not when Merlin had heard him in the shower, his lovely voice soaring like a bird taking wing — and putting just enough sorrow in his voice to disconcert Harry.

Harry responded immediately, opening his arms to succour the lad, but Eggsy just burrowed into Merlin's side as if too ashamed to show his face. "But, but you can move like a dream — you're limber, you're flexible, you're lovely in motion," Harry said, very nearly stuttering.

Hidden from Harry's view, Eggsy was patting Merlin's backside with possessive fondness. "Do you really think so?" the lad asked, appealingly bashful.

Harry began to respond, stopped, and eyed him. "You little devil," he finally said, and Eggsy's bright laugh pealed out. "Just do as you're told."

"Yes, Harry," Eggsy said demurely, turning to go. Merlin pulled him back into his arms, gave him a proper kiss, and then let him loose.

"The pair of you deserve each other," Harry said, and to Merlin it sounded like a best friend's blessing rather than a curse.


End file.
